Failure
by IvyShort
Summary: Pyrrha Nikos had never been fond of crowds. Arkos if you squint.


There were several things Jaune had learned at his short time at Beacon. Most were self explanatory - Port's class was always good for a nap, don't let Cardin Winchester control your life - but, certainly most importantly, he had learned that Pyrrha Nikos only wanted to be a Normal Girl.

Unfortunately for him, the closer he grew to Pyrrha, the worse he got at treating her like a Normal Girl. In fact, there were times it was downright impossible to treat her like a Normal Girl. He had to force himself to remain calm, swallow the butterflies in his stomach when he thought about how drop-dead _gorgeous _she was, and carry on with a smile no matter what because if Pyrrha Nikos wanted nothing but to be treated like a Normal Girl, it would not make her very happy if the leader of her team suddenly descended into a gibbering wreck whenever she entered the room.

Late arrivals from Mistral had apparently warranted a welcoming committee (Jaune could not fathom exactly why, but when Ozpin asked, it was wisest to follow his instruction), and thus the entire team found themselves out of bed at an absolutely ungodly hour to shake hands with the bleary-eyed students disembarking the ship.

Jaune looked sideways at his teammates and sighed, wishing the headmaster had chosen a different team to take on the tedious task that awaited them. Nora was slumped against Ren, eyes closed in a last-ditch effort to sneak in a few extra minutes of sleep. Ren was stiff as a board, immaculate as always but expressionless as well. Pretty much anyone would be a more reasonable welcoming commitee than sleeping beauty, a plank of wood, and their shabby, underdressed leader.

Pyrrha stood a foot to his right, as expressionless as Ren save for the lower lip curled backward into her mouth on one side.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked quietly as the gangplank lowered and the first trickle of students began to trudge toward them.

She nodded, forcing a small smile, "Of course. I'm quite excited to see my old classmates."

"You sure?" he pressed. Pyrrha was trying extremely hard, smoothing out the short brown skirt for the sixth time in ten minutes and adjusting her bracer, nodding yet again with her lips pressed together tightly. Maybe he was overthinking this - he'd never been good at reading people's body language, after all, and ever since the dance he had been oversensitive to just about everyone for fear of screwing up again. Pyrrha was probably just nervous about the tournament. No need for concern.

He snuck another glance at her just to make sure, trying to ignore the pointing and yelling from the students coming off the ship. Jaune resisted a frown as his outstretched hand remained empty (he understood he was no prize, but did everyone _have _to crowd Pyrrha?)

Pyrrha took a sidestep toward him, smiling nervously at the throng as they probed her with questions and wolf-whistles.

"Don't you miss Mistral? Why don't you come back?"

"Sign my shield?"

"Who's your boyfriend? Is it that blonde boy?"

"Why aren't you on Pumpkin Pete's anymore?"

"Nah, Nikos, you can do better than that! She's smoking!"

"You should get over yourself and date me, hot stuff!"

"Hey, watch your mouth!" Jaune cut in, glaring at the burly boy several feet away from him, "She's not a piece of meat!"

The hulk ignored him and Jaune had to resist his urge to sock the kid in the jaw (it probably wouldn't end especially well on his part, considering he was only mediocre at swordplay and equally as dismal as Ruby was at hand to hand combat). A hand reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her into the crowd further before she wrenched it away. Red hair caught the corner of his eye and whipped out of sight in an instant. Shit. Pyrrha was running.

"Nora, Ren, you take care of this," Jaune said as he looked around for his partener, "And no broken legs!"

He missed the joking salute from Nora when he turned to follow Pyrrha, but he knew she'd get over it eventually. Both eyes needed to stay on the redhead - she wasn't running, exactly, but her large, quick strides and bowed head told him all he needed to know.

She cut up the fire escape to the roof and disappeared from view.

.-.

"Hey."

When he had entered the room wheezing from the unexpected jog, the only hint of another occupant had been the click of metal against stone. Jaune had seen Ruby wedged between the bookcase and the wall next to Ren's bed several times, usually in one of her team's day-long sessions of hide and seek, but he hadn't expected the six foot tall Amazon to be able to wedge herself in as deeply as the tiny scythe-wielder.

She wiped her eyes furiously before looking up at him, "I'm sorry, Jaune."

He slid down the wall, stretching to pat her shoulder because there wasn't room for the hug he wanted to give her, "You shouldn't be. They were being jerks."

"I-I shouldn't have ran," she whispered, burying her head in her hands, "Ren and Nora-"

"Can handle it," Jaune finished for her, "You don't need to go back."

Pyrrha shifted out of her hiding place, drawing in slow, shuddering breaths as she started to stand up anyway. He grabbed her arm, disregarding the weak protest from the redhead, and pulled her back down. After a moment, she sat again, leaning ever so slightly into the space between his shoulder and his head. Arms wrapped around her tightly, Jaune spoke again.

"You're allowed to be upset, Pyrrha. You don't have to fight that too."

She finally gave up and started to cry again, tears soaking into his sweatshirt as Jaune rocked her back and forth slowly. The clock tower chimed nine o'clock - the ceremonies were starting - but he couldn't bring himself to leave. Neither of them were scheduled to fight until much later that night. There would be other opening ceremonies to gawk at, open-mouthed and wide eyed, as Pyrrha tried to conceal a smirk at his look of wonder.

Nora would probably give him the play-by-play whether he was there or not.

"I could have attended Haven," she whispered eventually, muffled by his sweatshirt to the point he wasn't sure that she had spoken at all, "I could have been stuck there."

Jaune grimaced into her ponytail, immediately regretting opening his mouth. He'd have hair in there for _days_, and Nora would never let either of them hear the end of it. Ever so slowly, he moved the mass of hair to her other shoulder, trying to think of what to say.

But he knew he didn't have to say anything. Pyrrha was scared - scared of disappointing the people she cared about and terrified of what would happen if she failed. The mere idea of remaining in Mistral was enough to make her cry, but selfless as she was, she was definitely scared of failing in front of the people who had mobbed her earlier that morning.

He'd sit with her as long as it took for her to realise that the fear of failure wasn't anything to be ashamed of. She was Normal Girl, after all. Not, as many would say, an invincible one.

Jaune kissed the top of her head lightly and hugged her tighter.

**I wrote a fic I write that isn't Fullmetal Alchemist/Royai? What? **


End file.
